Details
Movie Description
Director Ang Lee's main concern is a subtle examination of family life that he began with THE WEDDING BANQUET and EAT DRINK MAN WOMAN. With THE ICE STORM, Lee creates a truly American period film that is equally concerned with family relationships, set in 1970s New England. It is Thanksgiving, 1973, and the Carvers and the Hoods are two prototypical suburban families seemingly living the good life in New Canaan, Connecticut. Behind their New Age philosophies and polyester fashions, however, lies deep discontent. One husband carries on an unsatisfying affair with the other family's wife, while his teenage daughter experiments sexually with both of the neighbor's boys. When a winter storm descends upon their upper middle class neighborhood, buried resentments bubble over, leading to a tragedy neither family will ever forget.
An intense, well-acted drama based on the novel by Rick Moody, THE ICE STORM is a masterly depiction of the frigid emotional life of suburbia. Great care was taken to accurately recreate the fashion, philosophy, and music of the 1970s without devolving into camp. Sigourney Weaver, Kevin Kline, and Joan Allen all excel in their roles, but it is the younger actors (Christina Ricci, Tobey Maguire, Elijah Wood, Adam Hann-Byrd) who steal the show.
Synopsis
As a frigid winter storm descends upon the upper-middle-class Elysium of 1970s New Canaan, Connecticut, during Thanksgiving weekend, the climate within each immaculate home is equally chilly.
Industry Reviews
"...Perfectly conceived....THE ICE STORM is cinema at is most immaculate..."
Sight and Sound - p.42 - Lizzie Francke (02/01/1998)
"...A jewel....A methodically constructed social satire of suburban boredom..."
USA Today - p.1D - Mike Clark
"...The film is often satirical and frequently very funny, and quietly observant in its performances..."
Chicago Bulletin - Roger Ebert (10/17/1997)
"Kevin Kline is heartbreaking....Lee's self-help suburban hedonists try and fail to make sense of a world that's changing too fast..." -- Grade: A-
Entertainment Weekly - Chris Nashawaty (03/21/2008)
"Ang Lee's elegant, shattering adaptation of the Rick Moody novel....The big chill is hardly reserved for the outdoors."
Wall Street Journal - Joanne Kaufman (08/28/2009)
Quotations
"It was a typical predicament for the Fantastic Four because they weren't like other superheroes. They were more like a family. And the more power they had, the more harm they could do to each other without even knowing it. That was the meaning of the Fantastic Four, that a family is like your own personal antimatter."--Paul Hood (Tobey Maguire) in reflection
"Dear Lord, thank you for this Thanksgiving holiday. And for all the material possessions we have and enjoy. And for letting us white people kill all the Indians and steal their tribal lands. And stuff ourselves like pigs, even though children in Asia are being napalmed."--Wendy Hood (Christina Ricci)
"Jesus! Enough, all right? Paul...roll?"--Ben Hood (Kevin Kline)
"I'll show you mine if you show me yours."--Wendy to Sandy Carver (Adam Hann-Byrd)
"Ben, you're boring me. I have a husband. I don't need another one."--Janey Carver (Sigourney Weaver) to Ben
"It's like when they say two squared? You think it means two times two equal four, but really they really mean a square. It's really space. It's not numbers, it's space. And it's perfect space. But only in your head. Because you can't draw a perfect square in the material world. But in your mind you can have perfect space."--Mikey Carver (Elijah Wood) to his brother Sandy
"So the next time you're in the bathroom after someone else has been there, remember what kind of molecules you are in fact eating."--Mikey, reciting his paper on molecules to his class
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